USA Mobility: Cheap, But For How Long?

Though the market has risen considerably over the last few months, not every stock has been lifted by the tide. Shares of cash-cow USA Mobility (USMO) have flat-lined. As cash has continued to accrue, the valuation has become more compelling. USA Mobility now appears on the Magic Formula screener, both because it is cheap (P/E of 6), and because it generates strong returns on capital (2011 ROE of 40%).

Bloopers at Blyth

Herbalife (HLF) has been under the microscope lately as large money managers have taken turns offering their opinions (backed by capital) of where the stock is going. But all multi-level marketing (MLM) firms have been affected, as if you buy into the short thesis of Herbalife, it's not a stretch to envision the same circumstances taking down a company like Blyth (BTH), which sells a similar product (Visalus, for weight loss) in a similar way (MLM) to the same market.

But while Herbalife got a boost from all the longs that jumped in after its price fell, shares of Blyth aren't far from their 52-week lows, despite the market run-up. Shares have been pushed down by short-sellers; in fact, Blyth leads the market in terms of short-interest, with short-interest representing a whopping 63% of its float! But this is a profitable, 35 year-old company that trades at a P/E under 7!

My Dell Went Mmm

On May 23rd 2012, I was feeling pretty giddy about a purchase I had made in shares of Dell, tweeting:

"Caught a falling knife by the name of $DELL today. In a few yrs, expecting cuts healed and new knife to be used to open bags of money"

Such overconfidence is strongly discouraged, and will often get you killed.

Artio Shows You The Assets

Four short months ago, Artio was discussed on this site as a potential value investment. As the stock continued to fall, three short months ago I tweeted the following:

"Cash-flow positive money-manager Artio now trades for LESS than its net cash and investments"

One short day ago, Artio accepted an offer to be bought out for almost 15% more than its book value, which is about 50% higher than where it was trading at the time of the tweet. This was a kind of situation from which only a value investor could make money, thus offering a few lessons.

The Box

Levinson's The Box is a thorough guide to the history of the shipping container. You might think this would make for extremely dry reading,

Experiments Leading To Profits

"On the subject of economies of scale, I find chain stores quite interesting. Just think about it...You get a whole bunch of little laboratories out there in which you can conduct experiments" - Charlie Munger

Certain former market darlings are having a rough go of it these days. Though Mr. Market's mood has turned decidedly positive over the last 3 months, certain retailers remain mired at cyclical lows. The market has all but written off some of the country's largest electronics retailers, as they have seen declining sales and profits as a seemingly non-profit competitor continues to expand its reach.

But Mr. Market's outlook may be grossly wrong, having under-estimated the advantages some of these companies have combined with ROIC mean reversion. Now that the industry faces challenges, you are likely to see some of these advantages come to light once again.

TAT Technologies Rises

Stocks trading at discounts to their intrinsic values are harder to come by nowadays, but stocks rising towards their intrinsic values are more easily found. One example is TAT Technologies (TATT), which has traded at a discount to its net current assets for the better part of the last 5 years. TAT has been discussed on this site many times, most recently about 4 months ago. Since then, the stock is up more than 65%.